Foodz in Qatar

As promised some pictures of the foodz we had in Qatar. Basically it was an extension of the food at Ellen's birthday party. The first day we ate Moroccan at Tajine in the Souq Waqif. We had appetizers (pictured above), baby chicken tajine with stuffed dates:



... and baby camel:



Baby camel meat turns out to be very fatty, more fatty than either of us liked.

We were then taken out to dinner two days in a row, where I did not want to embarrass A by taking pictures. Therefore sadly no pictures of the really good Lebanese food we had (in great quantities) the second day.

The fourth day we were on our own again, and went for more Middle Eastern foodz. We ended up in Al Majalis with pretty good food (not as good as the amazing food we had the second day, but still very good --- especially the red hummus-like thing pictured below, which contained a lot of harissa).

Looking fashionable

Look at the beautiful disposable swimsuit I picked up in Doha. You can look fabulous, too: get your own at swimeeze.com!

Leaving Doha

Yesterday morning we checked out of the hotel to go back to Mister Bojangles. A last minute picture of the impressive flower arrangement for the folks at Hilvaria Studios, who are able to have flower arrangement that I like at least as much, at a much smaller budget.


Our driver was nice enough to stop so we could take a quick photo of the Doha Skyline.


And then we were off again. As soon as we left the ground, the air hostess came by to allow us all to replenish our alcohol levels. I have never seen so many people hit the hard stuff at 2 in the afternoon!

CMU Q and Education City

We present to you: Education City...

... and CMU Qatar.



Because it is so freaking hot in the summer months, and because people don't seem much inclined to go outside in other months either, the university has huge open spaces with fountains that feel almost like the outdoors.


The last photo shows the corridor where most of the Computer Science faculty is located. The bean bags are there for the students (and used quite a bit -- I've been told they are always dropping by to talk and ask questions). A nice Filipino man makes the rounds many times to make sure everyone stays hydrated.

Guerilla Knitting

Remember the yarn in this post? Me neither! Anyway, just before going on our trip, I received a "Pom-pom kit" to participate in an art project by an design student from Edinburgh. She sent out 1000 of these kits, so that people all over the world hang colorful pom-poms on trees, thereby "spreading joy and happiness!!" More pictures can be seen on Flickr, and a newspaper article about the project can be found here.

As we were in the Netherlands for Ellen's birthday party, we put up a first batch in Hilvarenbeek, hanging them from a branch of the more than 300 year old linden tree (planted in or just before 1676) on the Vrijthof in Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands.





The second batch we put just before leaving Qatar. We did not have time and energy to look for a palm tree (nor a ladder), so they ended up on the hotel premises.

No Qataris in Qatar

After a week here, we have failed to speak to any Qataris. We have spoken to people coming from many different places, but not to the cool rich guys wearing white thoubs and expensive watches and driving huge cars, or the women in beautiful black abayas, carrying unaffordable hand bags and being driven around by their driver in another huge car. Too bad, we had high hopes of being invited aboard their yachts...
It seems all the many many foreigners here are just there to do the jobs that the Qataris don't want to do themselves ("Qatarization" means that all the good jobs get kept for the Qataris, whether they are a good candidate for them or not), and not, like in China, to also be gazed at or displayed at parties. And we were getting so good at performing our white monkey duties!

Finally some more pics

They have been keeping us extremely busy here, and with all the weird impressions, we are only now getting a bit of our energy back.

Qatar is a place you have to see to believe. It consists of dust, sand, and very shiny buildings. The hotel at which we are staying is in West Bay, the "diplomatic area", which has all the shiny high rises. Just 25 years ago, there was just one hotel and lots of sand, now it is a beautiful skyline. Education City is another collection of shiny buildings, surrounded by sand, construction and dust.

Last night and this afternoon, we had a chance to see a bit more of Doha. Last night, we visited The Pearl, a man-made island with a few shiny residential high rises, and many shiny shops and restaurants. The harbor was filled with yachts that were about twice to three times as big as I had imagined the size of a big yacht to be. This afternoon, we managed to see all the remaining tourist attractions: Katara, the new "cultural village" (a shiny amphitheater, mosque and a collection of galleries that were still closed), the Museum of Islamic Art (even the art here is shiny and flawless -- no shards and broken plates here), the camel market, the Omani market (a drive through open air market, where Qataris in land cruisers shout from their windows to the stall owners), and Villagio (a shopping mall in Venetian style, complete with canals, a painted blue sky, and gondolas). Since we wanted something different, we surely found it here!

Perhaps tomorrow we will have more impressions and stories. If we are lucky, one of us may even get to speak to a real Qatari (they are an extremely wealthy but endangered species -- only about 10 percent of the population is Qatari).

Two Quick Pics

... before going to bed. Stories will follow.